Guess you could call it a busman's holiday to go look at art and art quilts on the Art Loop in Gatlinburg. Its been 3 years since I was last there and I wanted to see if things had changed much. They really had not... a lot of my old favorites were still there but I was disappointed that so many were closed on Sunday; I thought that would be an important tourist day. But it was not crowded at all; wait till the leaf season gets going good.I enjoyed meeting Henry Parker in his gallery/studio. He was out front with a propane torch "destressing" a picture frame for one of his masterpieces. "I do it all," he says, and he has the work on the walls to prove it.

He has specialized in Cade's Cove and the Outer Banks in his paintings.Next I saw a sign that advertised Lynn Greer Rogers' silk paintings and scarves. Well, I am a Greer on my mom's side and do silk paintings so that was irresistible! We are cousins some 50 times removed or something with mutual Greer ancestors, Scots, picts and druids and probably some what-nots. Lynn's paintings are divine and it is must visit to go to her shop at 170 Glades Road.

I see similarities!!!!!!!!!Another of my old time favorites was the shop Cliff Dweller's. Their building pokes into the side of a hill with the shop at the parking level and the studios upstairs. That is where I met Pat K. Thomas, a paper and marbling artist who teaches at Brasstown and Arrowmont. I know absolutely nothing about marbling and I really enjoyed seeing her at work. I also bought two beautiful pieces of fabric she had marbled and then screenprinted. I am challenging myself to make them into some kind of wearable art for THIS season, not sometime in the misty future!

Here she just marbled these pages from an ancient Chinese book. Gorgeous!

The Cliffdwellers have a nice website at cliffdwellersgallery.com for more on what is happening there. It was a fun day!